Editorial: Passage of Question 5 will do more harm than good

The proposal would require the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to automatically send personal information to the registrar of voters so a person can be registered to vote when receiving a driver’s license or making a license change, unless the person affirmatively declines in writing.

It is pointless because the DMV already sends information to the registrar of voters if a person agrees. All Question 5 does is change the system from an “opt in” to an “opt out.” It is a distinction without a discernible difference.

The backers of the initiative argue this will make it more convenient to exercise the right to vote and even save money.

“Voting is a fundamental right,” the argument for passage reads. “It is our most important way to guarantee our rights and freedoms — and it’s a responsibility to be taken seriously by both the people and the government. Yet our outdated voter registration process makes it unnecessarily difficult for eligible Nevada citizens to have their voices heard and leaves our registration system vulnerable to errors. … It will reduce the risk of fraud and lower costs.”

In fact, Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed the initiative during the 2017 legislative session, saying, “it extinguishes a fundamental, individual choice — the right of eligible voters to decide for themselves whether they desire to apply to register to vote — forfeiting this basic decision to state government. … the core freedom of deciding whether one wishes to initiate voter registration belongs to the individual, not the government.”

His veto message also said the change “would create an unnecessary risk that people who are not qualified voters may unintentionally apply to vote, subjecting them to possible criminal prosecution, fines, and other legal action.”

As for lowering cost, the fiscal note for Question 5 says it would cost $221,000 to implement and more than $50,000 annually to maintain.

The argument against passage of Question 5 points out, “The proposed ‘Opt Out’ system shifts the responsibility of registering to vote from the individual to the government. Nevada residents who do not want to be registered will have to affirmatively ‘Opt Out’ or have their names and addresses automatically added to voter rolls and become public information.”

It also notes there is no evidence this change would increase voter turnout.

There is no evidence this measure will accomplish anything other than increased opportunities for errors. We shouldn’t try to drag motorists kicking and screaming into the voting booth.

This law is precisely why California has so many illegal aliens who are registered to vote — because the DMV bends the rules for Spanish-speakers to let them get a driver’s license without having a birth certificate, and of course they’re registered to vote by the Helpful Desk Person on the spot.

If you too want to encourage non-citizens to control your government, by all means vote for a similar measure.

So what is the present situation? You say, “It is pointless because the DMV already sends information to the registrar of voters if a person agrees.” Agrees or requests? There can be no opt in or out if the driver is asked to choose one at the point of service – except for the occasional moron who refuses to decide. This makes me tend to presume that at present, the DMV helps only if the driver thinks of it and asks. Is that the case? If so, then why not just have the DMV ask drivers and forget about opting in or out? This is how organ donations are handled in Illinois. We just sign the blank on the back of our license (or not). Easy, eminently practical, and cheap.

For some reason, your link for the fiscal note goes to a page regarding question 3. There’s no mention of question 5. Nevertheless, $50,000 per year divided by the 3 million people of Nevada comes to about 1.6 cents per year per citizen. And you’re worried about the cost? Even so, I suspect the cost of signing someone up would be borne elsewhere if not done through the DMV. Failing to take all costs into account, including the time of the citizens, would be disingenuous.

Indy says: “What this amounts to is a slight change on the forms for a new driver’s license. Current forms direct ID applicants to fill out an optional page at the back of the form if they wish to register to vote. The new form would include a new checkbox asking applicants if they do not want to register, but still includes the same voter registration form as before.”

“Opt out” has been a bane of denigration to infosec for decades. Forcing people to opt out is a sneaky way to build big databases full of private information. These companies sell that info for their own gain.
As this applies to government, everything should be “Opt in” nothing should be “opt out” because choosing to opt in means the person doing so has taken at least a minimum of effort to understand what they are choosing to become a part or member and understands the responsibilities and requirements accompanying the choice to join.

Joining people without their express permission ensures we get a lot of people but not a lot of participation.

Opt out is not the preferred method of anyone in the IT/IS world and this is so for real reasons. Opt out should not be used by government in any way, shape or form.

No you implied that someone other than American citizens are voting. Which of course is baseless.

And it all goes back to members of the farthest of the far right wing simply wanting to deny American citizens the opportunity to vote. Things like, voter ID, closing polling places where democratic voters are more likely to vote, preventing other measures like colleges from registering students to vote it’s all for the purpose of denying American citizens the opportunity vote because, as we all know, the more people that vote,the less republicans and the far right are going to get those votes.

One need only look at who is behind this measure to understand this ploy…an organization known as IVote. It’s president is Ellen Kurz who served as President Barack Obama’s National Field Director for his re-election campaign of 2012. Their stated goal: “iVote focuses on two vehicles to go on offense for voting rights: Electing Democratic voting rights champions as secretary of state and passing automatic voter registration in states across the country.” Most of the states who’ve implemented this are deep blue. They are attacking Nevada’s current Secretary of State Barbara Cegavski for attempting to update and correct current voter rolls. (Removing names of deceased citizens, those who no longer live in Nevada, etc.) IVote and the Democrats behind it claim that this is blatant attempt to “disenfranchise” minority voters…sound familiar? IVote has spent over $371,000 to push this initiative and one of their poster boys is Rep. John Lewis. There has been no money raised to rebut it…that’s why you only see the IVote based commercials on TV.

The purported name of the group behind this initiative is the “Nevada Election Administrative Committee”…they have one donor, “IVote” who has donated $371,400 to push this measure in Nevada. There is no opposition thus far. Carpetbaggers are behind at least three of the four proposed initiatives.

Yep, republican sure don’t want blacks to vote in numbers. Heck, they don’t want anyone to vote in numbers. And they’ll do whatever it takes to stop them.

“That deadline to register to vote didn’t pass without controversy. On Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that about 53,000 registration applications were being held by the Georgia secretary of state because they were flagged by the state’s “exact match” system. That system, introduced by the state’s legislature last year, mandates a stricter process for validating registrations as part of an effort to curtail illegal voting. Illegal or fraudulent voting, it’s important to reiterate, is not by any measure a significant problem in the United States.

How strict are the new rules? If someone with the hyphenated last name of Jones-Smith were to register to vote but excluded the hyphen, they might be shunted to that “pending” registration list. It’s a process that has been shown to have an outsized effect on black, Hispanic and Asian voters in the state. Of the 53,000 applications being held by the secretary of state, 70 percent are for black voters.”

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